Gavin Newsom fails to give clear answer on democratic party's state
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom seemed stumped in a new interview about the state of the Democratic Party. 'I don't know what the party is,' he said in a sit-down with The Hill's Amie Parnes. 'I'm still struggling with that.' The candid answer comes as Newsom said the party hasn't done enough self-reflection about what happened last year. 'We have not done a forensic of what just went wrong, period, full stop,' Newsom said. 'I don't think it, I know it. I mean, to the extent that I'm marginally part of this party, I represent the state larger than 21 state populations combined, and I can assure you there's not been a party discussion that I'm aware of that has included the state of California.'
Parnes and her co-writer, NBC's Jonathan Allen, wrote in their new book Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House some of the most jaw-dropping details about President Joe Biden 's decline - that some party leaders weren't even aware of. Biden's July exit from the presidential race didn't give Vice President Kamala Harris enough time to find her footing - and she lost all seven swing states to President Donald Trump. 'If you don't learn the lessons of the past, you will repeat them,' Newsom said. 'The fact that we're not even stress-testing what the hell just happened and we're having an honest forensic conversation,' he added.
At the same time, he wasn't highly critical of Harris, a fellow Californian. Asked what she did wrong, Newsom answered he 'would have a difficult time answering that.' 'Because I think I'd be unfair in answering that,' he said, pointing to the very short runway Harris was given after Biden dropped out. We're all geniuses, not just experts in hindsight. And I thought they ran a remarkably effective 107-day campaign, and all her strengths were there,' he said.
Now in the Trump era, he pushed back on criticism he received from some voices on the left about giving MAGA personalities, Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon, a platform by having them on his This is Gavin Newsom podcast. 'The reaction when I had Charlie Kirk and Bannon on was exactly to me Exhibit A of what I feel is wrong right now with my party: an unwillingness to even engage in platform, to listen,' Newsom complained. He said that Democrats 'wanted it to be a debate, take the guy down as opposed to, these two voices had a disproportionate impact on the voice you're hearing every single day, in the megaphone in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.'
'So maybe we should pay attention and at least express a desire to absorb and learn from what they're doing and how successful they've been,' Newsom added. He explained that he launched the podcast to listen to a wide range of voices across the political spectrum. 'And so … I'm testing that,' Newsom said. 'At the same time, I'm being tested by it, because the reaction has been a little more bumpy than I even anticipated.'
While he was down on the party, he did applaud the efforts of two of its progressive stars - Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - who are rallying some of the base with their 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour. 'It's great. It meets the moment. It meets the zeitgeist, the energy,' the governor said. 'It's what people want.' That being said, he noted that the 'energy is always' coming from the progressive wing.
In both the 2016 and 2020 cycles, when Sanders was running in the Democratic primary, he drew much larger crowds than the eventual nominees, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, respectively. But he cautioned that a far-left candidate may not be what gets the party out of the political wilderness and back into the White House. 'In the Democratic Party, that's where the energy is. And I intimately understand that nature-nurture coming from the Bay Area and sort of progressive politics,' he said. 'But I don't know that an electoral victory from a prism of 2028 lies there.'
'I'm not convinced of that … but I admire their willingness to step in the void, to distill a sense of well-being, a spirit, sort of restore a little bit of pride in the Democratic experiment, party. So I do admire that,' Newsom added. During the 2024 campaign, Trump feared that Biden could drop out, which he ultimately did. And it was Newsom that worried him most in terms of a challenger.
But that was before he saw Newsom debate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis - who was running against Trump in the GOP primariews - in November 2023. 'Ron's an idiot, he doesn't have what it takes. But I thought Newsom would be better,' Trump thought at the time, according to Alex Isenstadt's book Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power.
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